How Ukrainians Played Hockey

“ Ukrainian hockey is 100 years old” - this volume edition counts 400 pages of exciting history of origin on the Ukrainian land of the first teams which played Canadian hockey with a puck already then, in far 1910. Epilogue to the book was written by Mykola Azarov - one of initiators of the project “Ice Stadiums of Ukraine” (2007).
During the conversation with the Lviv researcher, one of the authors of this book Oles Noga we find out what stipulated its appearance, with what participants of those distant events he met, where searched materials and, finally, what was the aim.

– How did events develop after the war in the sports society “Ukraine”?

– The section of hockey was officially registered in 1927. Not many know today that in the team Myron and Roman, the sons of the known Ukrainian artist Ivan Trusha, played. But, as the team member Omelyan Buchatskyi told that hockey started up very heavily, foremost because of the necessity of considerable material charges. The equipment of hockey player was expensive, for example, the stick cost 7 Polish Zloty, while unskilled worker earned 30 Zloty per month. Mittens were brought from Canada, the hockey player had to pay 80 Zloty for them, the uniform for a goalkeeper – 500–600 Zloty. Artificial ice was a problem, conducting of hockey matches depended on the weather. As the winter in Lviv was always unsteady, then one of the grounds was laid with the unglazed ceramic flag-stone, then it was inundated by water with the zero temperatures, then the surface of flag-stone was sheltered with the thin layer of ice and it gave the possibility to conduct hockey matches.

Larysa MARCHUK